When we were arrived my manner frightened my aunt; she feared I’d do myself a mischief and would not lose sight of me. I sat in a chair and never spoke, though I answered when I was addressed, and obeyed mechanically; as, for example, if my aunt entreated me to come to the table and eat I quitted my chair and took up the knife and fork, but without eating. My gaze was fixed! I saw nothing but Tom standing at the bar of the Old Bailey, hearkening to his sentence, lifting up his hand to me and looking upward. If I turned my eyes toward my aunt, Tom was behind her. If my uncle sat before me and addressed me, the vision of Tom painted in bright colours receiving sentence and lifting his hand was behind him. Once during the evening of the day of the trial, when my uncle came into the parlour, my aunt turned to him and said: ‘If she would only cry!’ She took me to her bed that night, and I lay without speech, seeing Tom as in a vision, and hearing the sentence over and over again repeated. I may have slept; I cannot tell. My aunt wished me to remain in bed next morning, but when she was dressed I got up and followed her to the parlour. My uncle sat by a glowing fire; he was deeply interested in a newspaper and was probably reading a report of the trial. ‘Aunt,’ I said, speaking for the first time, and in a voice so harsh and unmusical that my uncle, not knowing that I had entered, looked up with gesture of surprise and dropped the newspaper, ‘I wish to go home.’ ‘No, dear, not yet.’ I was about to speak, to say that I believed my going to the house where my father and mother had lived--to the house that was full of old associations, where I had thought to dwell with Tom when we were married--would soothe and do me good. I was about to tell her this, but could not for giving way; and, hiding my face in my hands, I bowed my head upon the table, neither of them speaking nor attempting in any way to arrest the passion of tears. I felt better after this dreadful outbreak; it seemed to have cleansed my brain and to give room for my heart to beat and for my spirits to stir in. I looked at the good things upon the table, the eggs and bacon, the ham and the rest, and said: ‘How do they feed prisoners in jail?’ ‘Now, don’t trouble about that, Marian,’ said my uncle. ‘Captain Butler has been a sailor, and he has been bred up on food compared to which the worst fare in the worst jail in England is delicious.’ ‘What will they do with him?’ ‘Until they despatch him across the seas they’ll keep him in prison at Newgate, perhaps, or they’ll send him to Millbank or to the Hulks. No man can tell.’ ‘Don’t fret yourself now with these inquiries, Marian,’ said my aunt. ‘How do they treat convicts in jail, uncle?’ ‘Very well, indeed. Better than the majority of them deserve. They feed them, clothe them, and teach them trades to enable them to live honestly by-and-by.’ ‘In what sort of ships do the convicts sail?’